Word2003 Global Startup Template Menu Items and Toolbars to Word2010?

[PamW]

Hi All

I learnt to programme in Word using Woody's fantastic "Hacker's Guide to Word for Windows" books, and since then have moved and modified through various versions of Word a Global Startup template which loads up a Menu with various items on it and a couple of associated toolbars.

Now with Word2010 I can access the toolbar options of this .dot startup template from the AddIns ribbon, and the macros, which still work OK, from the Developer tab, but I have lost my list of Menu items. I now need to make this work properly, though, in Word2010!

I'm assuming I need to have a .dotm template - but should I create a new blank one and then copy the macros across or can I just do "Save As" with the original, and how can I achieve my Menu effect? Guessing that I need to move to a Ribbon - really finding it difficult to get my head round this concept, probably because I've been working the other way since Word6

Any advice would be reatly appreciated.
Thanks
Pam

[kmurdock]

Hi Pam,

First, regarding losing your menus, I have always been able to see and use my Word 2003 and before menu items on the Add-Ins tab. They were at the far left in a group called Menu Commands. If you added items to existing Word menus, they will show up here as buttons. If you added a new menu, they will appear here as a drop-down (menu) button. If you don't see them there, something has gone wrong.

Next, as one who's taken macros and menu items and translated them to a Ribbon interface, I can tell you that you're right -- it does take a while to wrap your head around it. I can't tell you how to design your ribbon, but I can give you some advice.

Design your ribbon based on what works best and logically in the new interface. I created a new Ribbon, but this may be overkill for you. Don't put everything in little toolbar-size buttons; if you have a lot of buttons, this makes it very difficult to distinguish between them, so vary the size of buttons based on what makes the most sense.

It's also very valuable for you to understand Word 2010 before recreating the way you used to do it in the old Word. You may find that some of your macros are unnecessary. This is a perfect opportunity for you to evaluate and prune dead wood, and to perhaps create new stuff. Don't let "but it's always been this way" constrain you.

I created a new .dotm (this is a must), then I only moved the macros that I found I needed. I added a few and adjusted others.

I learned ribbon xml and created my own ribbon and icons and hover help and everything. This required a bit of a learning curve and a lot of fiddling, but it's been the most satisfactory for me. There's a good book that I used -- Ribbon X - Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon. (This link is to Amazon, but it's available elsewhere.) Plus I watched videos hosted by Microsoft (try Stephanie Krieger's) and I read some great stuff, particularly by Greg Maxey. And there are a lot of other resources available.

In Word 2010, it's now possible to manipulate the ribbon directly from within the program -- for me, this didn't give me the control I needed, but it's much quicker. There are also a couple of programs that help you create ribbons -- again, they didn't give me as much latitude as I needed, but they may work splendidly for you. Search this forum and you'll find references and recommendations.

Hope this gets you started. Good luck!
Kim

[PamW]

Thanks Kim, that is really useful. I lost my menus when I was initially trying to figure this out - I've obviously set one of the many options wrongly because even removing the template and then putting a new copy in Startup failed to retrieve them. I know they do work because my users have got them, just the person who created them that has lost them I can see I'm going to be on a big learning curve next week.
Thanks again
Pam

[kmurdock]

How very odd. Aren't computers interesting?

Well, even though the menu commands don't appear on the Add-Ins Tab, are any macros behind the menu commands still in your template? If so, you can try adding them to your Quick Access Toolbar and use them from there. In fact, you might want to do this for all your users.

Here's what you can do for them:

• Open the QAT Customization dialog (on any ribbon, right-click and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar).
• In the Choose commands from drop-down at the top left, choose Add-Ins Tab.
• Add Custom Toolbars and Menu Commands to your QAT.
• Click OK

If you still can't see any Menu Commands, try this for yourself:

• Customize the QAT again and point the drop-down to Macros.
• You should be able to see all the macros in the template in the list box below the drop-down. There may be macros from other loaded templates (like Normal), so scroll until you find them.
• Put the ones you need on the QAT.

You and your users should now be able to access everything from the QAT. Let me know if you have any questions or problems.

Best, Kim

[PamW]

Love em or hate them, they are addictive

Yes the macros are all there, which is how I've been accessing via the Macros menu.

I'd like to be able to go via the ribbon route, but that's obviously a longer learning curve, so I added the relevant menu items to the QAT and gave each one an icon, and they are there and working, yippee!!

The users might like this, and as I'm training key users next week I can show them these, but one more question for you, where does the QAT "live", in the global startup template or just in my instance of Word? I'm thinking about how I would roll this out to the users.

Really do appreciate your help, you've solved a big problem for me in an incredibly short space of time

Thanks again, Pam

[kmurdock]

You're in luck as the QAT lives in a file -- Word.officeUI -- on your computer. Which means you can easily copy and transport it to another computer.

If you have Windows 7, it's located in Users\<name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\
If you have Windows XP it's located in... I think... Documents and Settings\<name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\

This is an xml file, by the way -- you can take a peek at it with Notepad if you're interested.

Best, Kim

[PamW]

Found it! Client computers are mainly XP but some are now Windows 7, the one I'm working on at present is XP. Will run some tests with the users next week.

Thank you so much!
Cheers
Pam

[kmurdock]

Glad to have helped. Good luck with your new ribbon!

Best, Kim